Social dimensions of urban resilience to climate change

Casilda Saavedra

Climate change is one of the most crucial challenges worldwide, and especially for local governments, since its potential impacts are felt and have to be dealt with at the local level. Climate change involves uncertainty and represents a daunting challenge for urban planning. Thus, building resilience at the local level is emerging as an essential element of planning. However, the application of the resilience framework to urban systems is in its early stages. Managing resilience in urban systems requires understanding human behavior as the main driver of environmental change. However, key social factors that facilitate the effective building of urban resilience are poorly understood. This research provides insight into the social attributes that cities might develop in order to become more resilient in the face of uncertainty created by climate change. These attributes include several noteworthy features, such as level of social capital, open- mindedness, and cultural diversity. The purpose is to determine to what extent there is a relationship between social/cultural structures and urban commitment and planning to climate change that could discriminate between resilient and non-resilient urban areas with respect to climate change. This dissertation is centered on four research questions: (1) Is it possible for local governments to mitigate climate change without losing opportunities for creating adaptive capacity?; (2) Could social capital explain differences in resilience to climate change in urban areas?; (3) Could differences in resilience to climate change in cities be explained by differences in the open-minded attitude of citizens?; and (4) To what extent is there a relationship between cultural diversity and resilience to climate change? Results of this research show that local governments can engage in mitigation strategies without losing opportunities for creating adaptive capacity. Moreover, it also suggests that features such as social capital, open-mindedness and cultural diversity are closely linked to the process of enhancing resilience to climate change. Analysis of two groups of cities with distinctive behavior in response to climate change issues showed that cities which are more committed to mitigating and creating adaptive capacity climate change feature a population with higher levels of social capital, open-mindedness and cultural diversity.

Social dimensions of urban resilience to climate change

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